Shadowrun - T.I.D.E.

Meeting with a fixer in real life was nothing like the trideo. No backroom in a trendy club, no warehouse full of illegal weapons. No man in a three-piece suit that oozed charisma. Instead the room was a smelly office, with cheap furniture, on the edge of the Puyallup lava fields and the man was a short, weasel of a guy with a bad haircut and a nose like a potato. The two orcs playing bodyguard did fit the trids, even if one smelled even worse than the room.

Beggars can’t be choosers however, Lenny Morrison was the only ‘Fixer’ my neighbor new who would take chances on a no name. My money was running out and the landlord of the crappy hovel I was reduced to did not take “I’ll have the money next week,” as a acceptable answer to his question of “where’s the rent?” No one would hire a security guard who’s been fired for dereliction. Even if there had been no way to know his coffee had been drugged. The corps had less patience with excuses than his landlord did. So if protecting places from crime was the reason he was out of work and broke, maybe committing crimes was a way to fix his financial situation.

The weasel finally stopped reading something in AR and focused on his guest. “Looks like you’ve had a rough time. MCT doesn’t take failure well, even from low level grunts like you. They have a bad habit of giving blackball lists to other corps too, probably why Renraku or Evo didn’t snap you up.”

The snickering from the not smelly orc was irritating and a little of that crept into his reply. “You can see my marksmanship scores and, I’d imagine, you’ve been reading my old personnel files. Before the incident I was on my way up. So, is there a job, I’m willing to do anything short of murder.”

Playing with something unseen, the weasel leaned back in his chair. “I’ve got something. Not one of my normal friends, but then again neither are you.” He flicked a file he was holding towards my commlink and the quiet ding let me know that it had been accepted. “You’ll find the address in the file. The pay promised is ¥2,000 upfront and the same after the job is done. He’s also promised some gear, including weapons, since he knows you and the others I’ve found for him, are new to the shadows.”

His grin turned him from merely ugly to extremely scary. “So, let’s see if a guard dog has what it takes to run with the wolves.”